Accused Tesla Vandal Released to Receive ‘Gender-Affirming Care’

A court released from jail a suspect who allegedly set fire to Tesla vehicles in Kansas City, Missouri, in order to allow the suspect to continue receiving “gender-affirming care.”

Authorities arrested the 19-year-old suspect, identified as Owen McIntire, last month in Boston, after McIntire allegedly set fire to Tesla cybertrucks in March using “Molotov cocktails.” McIntire is a student at the University of Massachusetts in Boston and was visiting family in Kansas City at the time of the incident.

Federal prosecutors charged McIntire with malicious destruction of property and unlawful possession of an unregistered firearm.

Judge Jessica Hedges issued an order setting release conditions, and prosecutors have asked the court to revoke that order.

According to Fox 4 Kansas City, which reviewed the defense’s documents, McIntire’s attorney argued the suspect should be released because McIntire is suffering “serious and ongoing” medical needs and treatments that could not or would not be provided while in federal detention.

“The defense filing says McIntire is undergoing treatment for depression and is receiving gender affirming care that began in March of this year—and that care would likely be interrupted or terminated in federal custody,” the outlet reported. McIntire’s attorney also cited his client’s lack of a criminal history and ties to the Kansas City area as reasons McIntire would not be a flight risk.

Prosecutors argued, however, that there is a “rebuttable presumption of detention” in the case because McIntire stands accused of violent offenses with a maximum prison term exceeding 10 years.

“The nature and circumstances of the charged offenses support detention in this case,” prosecutors wrote. “The offense involved the use of multiple destructive devices to firebomb Tesla vehicles at a Tesla dealership. Setting these vehicles on fire creates an extremely hazardous situation for anyone nearby and responding public safety officers and firemen.”

Prosecutors also wrote that “the weight of the evidence that the defendant made and used two destructive devices to commit an arson is overwhelming.” They cited evidence that McIntire’s phone was located at the scene of the crimes and that the suspect was driving a car that fit eyewitness descriptions.

Laine Cardarella, the public defender assigned to McIntire’s case, did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment by publication time.

Gender Confusion

While court filings and news reports unanimously refer to McIntire using male pronouns, the involvement of “gender-affirming care” introduces confusion into the reporting.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, noted on a podcast Monday that McIntire could be male or female.

“I think this is a person who was born female, who has decided that she is a ‘he’ and wants to be a man,” Cruz said. “The reason I think that is we’ve googled it, and every damn story uses ‘he’ ‘he’ ‘he’ ‘he’ ‘he,’ and given the insane Orwellian world we live in, I think if ABC is referring to this person as a he and this person is transgender, that to me means the person was born a she.”

Ben Ferguson, Cruz’s co-host, responded, “This is a dude that grew out his hair and looks like a chick.”

The Daily Signal reached out to the Justice Department and to the University of Massachusetts in Boston, and neither shed light on McIntire’s biology.

“I can confirm that Owen McIntire has been enrolled at UMass Boston beginning fall semester 2024,” DeWayne Lehman, the school’s director of communications, told The Daily Signal in a statement Monday. “In keeping with [the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act], we cannot release protected information about any student.”

Three possible scenarios could explain the confusion: McIntire could be male and he could have belatedly claimed the need for “gender-affirming care” in a non-convincing manner, such that court records and news outlets still refer to him as male; McIntire could be female and may have changed official records to present herself as male; or the “gender-affirming care” could be of the sort that does not directly relate to a “transgender” identity, such as hormone treatment to resolve a disorder.

The Trend of Tesla Violence

After President Donald Trump launched the Department of Government Efficiency to root out waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government and presented Tesla CEO Elon Musk as the face of the effort, protesters have targeted Tesla to oppose DOGE. The Left’s dark money network has funded organizations helping the protests, and activists even published a map ostensibly plotting every Tesla dealership across the U.S. to enable vandals to target them.

As The Daily Caller’s Audrey Streb reported in March, many of the vandals who targeted Teslas appear to identify as transgender or “nonbinary.”

McIntire’s name did not appear on Streb’s list.

She did, however, include 42-year-old Justin Thomas Nelson (who goes by Lucy Grace Nelson and who was charged with “malicious destruction of property” in Colorado); 27-year-old Erin L. White (who uses she/they pronouns and who was charged with criminal damage to property and trespass for allegedly vandalizing a Tesla center in Illinois); and 41-year-old Adam Matthew Lansky (who went by the alias Allison Tesla and who was accused of possessing Molotov cocktails while attempting to destroy Tesla property at a Salem, Oregon, car dealership).

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